The ChangingMinds Blog!

How to get things done in your community

It's easy to sit in a meeting and pontificate about what should be done. It
is entirely something else to get out and make change happen when everyone else
is putting obstacles in your way. I have seen the difference in both work
contexts and also in community situations. People can be amazingly narrow
minded, interested only in things that affect them directly. Politicians
likewise may be interested first in their own status rather than what may
benefit their constituents.

In musing and conversation about this, particularly in a voluntary, community
setting, there seems to be three key things that are needed to get things done.

Energy

To get through all this and more, the petty objections, the vanishing funds,
the unenthusiastic volunteers, all can sap energy and make you want to scream.
But no, you need unrelenting positive energy. You can't get away from local
people, and accumulating enemies is probably a bad idea.

Positive energy is a powerful magnet as people gravitate towards good
feelings. Persistence and determination get things done. Only giving up leads to
failure.

Resource

Sadly, things don't get done by energy alone. You may need wood, paint and
many other materials to complete a piece of work. You will need tools to do the
job. You may need to hire professionals to do things that your volunteers cannot
do.

And, while some resources may be donated or owned, many activities require
money, of course. You hence may well need to be adept at fundraising, from
wheedling sponsorship from local businesses to applying for grants from major
philanthropic organizations.

Organization

When groups of people get together to get things done, the initial
organization is typically chaotic, with anybody doing anything. Before long,
however, it needs some kind of structure, so things are done in a more
consistent, reliable way.

This means more division of roles, more definition of processes and more
documentation of decisions, plans and action. A big danger here is to overdo
this, putting in structures more suitable for a larger organization. There is
nothing like weighty bureaucracy for putting people off. It is also a risk in
staying too casual.

An early step is identifying skills needed and who can step into these shoes.
A leader helps create focus. A treasurer helps manage money and keep things
legal. There is also room for 'doers' who just want to get on with things and
'friends' who just want to contribute concerns and ideas.

A simple first structural step is to organize regular meetings. A typical way
to do this is to hold weekly or even daily small-group focus meetings to keep
things moving apace, plus larger, more open monthly or quarterly consulting
meetings which both inform and listen to the wider community.

Rather than draw up process definitions, a more practical documentation is to
build toolkits for activities from meetings to grant applications. These can
include checklists, templates, contact data, technical notes and so on. The only
criterion is that they make work easier and more successful.